Friday, May 13, 2016

March and April Grocery Tallies and Christmas Fund 2016

I am recapping both March and April grocery results as did not report due to our holiday. Our normal monthly grocery budget which includes all groceries/cleaning supplies/toiletries/over the counter meds is $550 Canadian for two adults. Due to overages in prior months being deducted in order to stay on annual budget, the budget for March was $524.44. I went a couple bucks over that but so close I consider it a win. Although we were gone for 11 days in April I still left the regular budget in place as had to stock up after the trip to fill the fridge back up and hit upon several good meat sales so the freezer is full.

May Budget will be $550 plus underage from April of $48.89 so budget will be $598.89 although I have no intention of spending that much. Certain times of the year are more expensive than others like when my Stepsons come to visit and that will be happening this summer so I need room in the budget to feed them. My stepdaughter is visiting next weekend but she doesn't eat much so we don't have to factor in any extra for her except veggies as she is mostly vegetarian.

Spain: Nice cheap beer in Malaga - but we went with Spanish beers. This was .65 Euro so about $1 CAD

I am pretty happy with this total but hope to have it around $300 by November when it will all be used/cashed in to buy gifts and groceries for Christmas. Every freebie I can save towards this goal is one less hard earned dollar I need to save towards gifts, a win in my books.

Spain: Beautiful apartment building doorway in Cordoba

My New Addiction
Yes, I am now addicted to my local 24 hour Facebook bidding site. It has over 3000 members which is huge considering the population of Comox/Courtenay (two towns but essentially one as there is no land between them, one stops the other starts)is around 70,000. I mostly sell items there and since January have raised $142 from items that were either great items that didn't sell in our last garage sale or items saved for our next one. Based on the huge effort it takes to have an actual garage sale I will be selling all items this way from here on out. I have only bought 3 items there but all were deeply discounted and totalled less than $20.

My favorite sale was an adjustable shower curtain rod that the previous owner had left behind. We installed a permanent shower rod as hubby sometimes hangs suits on it to get wrinkles out rather than drycleaning so it needed to be sturdier. I listed it in our last garage sale for $1 and it didn't sell and for some reason it wasn't taken to charity like a lot of other items that didn't sell. I ended up getting $8 on the auction site - there were 3 bidders after it! I couldn't believe it but people in my Valley certainly do know how to stretch their dollars and the second hand movement thrives here.

The $142 went straight into my weekends away fund which is being spent in June on our weekend to Ucuelet/Tofino for hubby's birthday. So nice to get away and not have to come out of our wages. We put any money from sold items and bottle returns into that fund and haven't used it for 2 years in order to make this expensive weekend work. My regular travel fund is completely separate. Although we just got home from Spain I am already saving for our next adventure (to be determined). I usually save between $200-$500 a month for travel - it is the one thing in our lives we spend a bit of money on and fortunately had oversaved for Spain so there is already over $1000 in it, hurray!

16 comments:

I miss the days of the refund on bottles. I could not believe that every province did not take part. I considered moving to Comox area at one point, the kids talked me out of it. I have only a few shekels in my Christmas fund- it is after all spring and plants are more important. As for holidays, my daughter a.k.a. Aunty and I usually do a big holiday every second year. This year will be camping. They love that just as much. Your blogging is nice.

I have spend more than a few dollars on plants this year so know what you are talking about - but we finally finished all of that so will concentrate on plumping the funds. I love that they do deposits here on bottles - BC and Alberta both. In Alberta they even did deposits on milk cartons which I thought was a great idea.

We don't have a community bidding page like you have, but we do have community sales groups. I bought everything I needed for my granddaughter's visits when she was a baby from it, turned around and sold them for the same price. I just bought a youth bed that I intend to do the same thing with.

The benefit of second hand - you can often resell for the same as what you bought it for (and occasionally higher!). We did that with a snow blower in Alberta, used it for 5 years, tuned it up and spiffed it up and sold it for the same price as what hubby bought it for. Free use for 5 years. Our neighbors loved us too because we had the only snow blower on the block so would do the sidewalks

I am now starting to think I should do a Christmas fund with any little freebies or incentives I can earn. I did a 30 minute interview yesterday and earned $25 Target card-pretty nice addition to a gift fund. I'm going to check out the Amazon referral.

I have a chequing acct for bills and savings for everything else (our retirement accounts are with Scotia itrade). In the savings account I have my various funds and separate the amounts on paper - easy and it works! I also keep $2000 of the savings in my chequing acct to meet the minimum amount to not have to pay service fees (used to be $1000 but then they upped it)

Wow, you are doing great on your funds. I still haven't gotten any cash in yet for mine but I have a lot saved up.My grocery budget is a work in progress. I still can't stay under $100/week. And now that DJ is home, I'm sure that it will go up.

You will see in a week or so this month I am already over - for some reason I am stock piling everything! I feel like a squirrel. Not sure why. Thinking of trying to have a low-spend month in June as my freezer, cupboards and fridge are near bursting.

Isn't being frugal fun? And finding ways of saving money, getting free money and reducing expenses?! I'm all excited because beginning in June my income will go up by $600/month. It will all go towards travelling and home updates.

$600 bucks a month more is like winning the lottery! I remember when you weren't sure if you were going to be able to live within the smaller budget - no problemo! I'm happy for you Jane, you earned it!

We have a couple of those sites too including Craigslist but you never know if people are going to show up. On this site if you don't show up to pay for what you bought you get kicked out of the group. So far I have had only 1 crappy buyer out of 10 so way better odds.